Harry Potter and the Temporal Incursion
by Mutrox
Summary: They say time can be rewritten. That's what we were told in the beginning. But what "they" never seem to mention is whether or not time SHOULD be rewritten, and what happens once it is. I'm Harry Potter. And this is how the future died.
1. A Gathering of Friends

**This story is a product of imagination, specualtion, and the desire to answer the burning questions of "What if?" I do not own any copywrited characters from either franchise. The characters who appear here who did not originate in either series, however, are the products of my own imagination and are used to facilitate the story itself.**

_They say time can be rewritten. That's what we were told in the beginning. But what "they" never seem to mention is whether or not time SHOULD be rewritten, and what happens once it is. I'm Harry Potter. And this is how the future died._

Harry Potter and the Temporal Incursion

Rain poured down from the sky in buckets. Thunder rumbled angrily in the dark clouds oveErind as the wind slashed at his face. Puddles splashed at his ankles, drenching his feet. Cursing under his breath, he pulled his thick wool coat tighter to his body and trudged on.  
The dirt road stretched forward into the endless gloom of the storm. Weeds trembled in the wind like saplings in an earthquake. The ditch beside the road churned with muddy water, nearly overflowing its banks. Lightning split the sky ahead for the blink of an eye. Its curved, crooked structure seemed to hold a laughing face, as if the storm itself were mocking him.  
Turning off the road, he continued on into a thick wood. Trees cut at him as he forced his way through the thick brush.  
Mile after mile lay behind him. Blisters on his feet, having long split open, oozed clear liquid through his socks, mixing with the dirty rainwater. The burn on his side stung from the constant rubbing of his coat. His muscles burned with lactic acid, but still he slogged on.  
The hours ticked by. The sky grew darker as the sun set behind the clouds, and he wondered if he had somehow passed his destination in the maelstrom. Then, in a brilliant flash of lightning, he beheld the outline of a small cabin not 50 meters from where he stood.  
His knuckles rapped on the hard wood under the deep scratch in the door. A small panel slid open, revealing only darkness.

"Password," a low voice growled.  
He glanced around quickly. Then he leaned in close and whispered "A master without his servants is nothing." The panel slid shut for a moment, and the creaky door slid open.  
The interior stretched in every direction. He barely noticed, having become accustomed to this bigger-on-the-inside trick over the course of many years. A small group of people gathered around a circular table. The tallest and gauntest of them rose in recognition.  
"I apologize for the inconvenience, Magnus. We've been having trouble maintaining the camouflage spells and we felt we couldn't risk lowering them even for a second."  
"The exercise did me good," Magnus replied stiffly. "Though I admit I'm a bit out of practice at evading detection on the Network anyway."  
The gaunt man nodded thoughtfully. "Very well. Help yourself to some of the refreshments. We have but one more guest to await."  
Magnus strode over to a long, rectangular table and poured himself a drink, ignoring the eyes he could feel boring into his back.  
"That's a bit strong for so late, wouldn't you agree?" A dark-haired woman suddenly appeared at his side.  
Magnus smiled grimly. "I'd say I deserve it after my long walk." He gulped down half of his glass in one swing.  
"But not before a meeting so important." She grabbed the glass.  
Magnus held on to the glass, his arm barely moving despite her best efforts. "I've had harder than this much earlier and before much more serious business." He downed the last of the glass before releasing it, leaving her with only an empty vessel.  
She bit off a half smile. "Magnus Jalekev. How I've missed you."  
"I can't say the same for you, Erin." He chewed out her name like an insult.  
Erin hesitated for a second. "The years haven't been kind to you, I see."  
Magnus turned and faced her. "Kind?" He snorted slightly. "Nothing ever seems kind after you've seen _it_."  
Erin's mind flashed to what he was talking about. "Magnus…"  
"Yes?" A small burst of light flashed from the end of a cigar he pulled out of his pocket. He inhaled deeply through the cigar, exhaling a smoke cloud a second later.  
A small gasp escaped Erin. "Bloody idiot!" she hissed through clenched teeth. "The spells are fragile enough as it is! Even a tiny burst could-"  
"Relax. They won't detect it. Not the way I do it." Magnus took another deep breath. "Besides, there wasn't a 'No Smoking' sign."  
Erin opened her mouth, but at that instant, the door creaked open. A tall, bright- redheaded woman stepped in. Her gaunt features rivaled those of the gaunt man, but unlike him, her gauntness betrayed sickness. Her skin was drawn across her bones tauter than a drum. Her eyes were sunk back into her skull, giving her a haunted look. No adipose tissue was visible, and it was a wonder she did not collapse where she stood.  
"Inara," Erin whispered. "I thought she died in the Purge."  
"Who is she?" The end of Magnus' cigar glowed brightly.  
"She's a magic engineer. She creates and repairs magical devices as easily as you and I breathe. One of her inventions must have enabled her to survive." Inara made her way to the round table, a look of pain on her face. "But it can't have been easy for her, given her current… state."  
"Hello, Inara," the gaunt man acknowledged. "I trust the journey hasn't been too rough on you?"  
Inara removed her outer cloak. A thin weave of glowing fibers was wrapped around her torso. "They can't find me. Not with this." Abruptly she tore off the weave, throwing it to the ground. "It draws on my body energy, so it only works so long as it can power itself with my metabolism." The glowing ceased immediately.  
The gaunt man nodded, looking slightly irritated. "Take a seat." The order was addressed to the entire room.  
Magnus seated himself on the opposite side of the table from Erin. She shot him an irritated look but said nothing. Inara sat down next to him, not bothering even to give him a side glance.  
The gaunt man remained standing. "Thank you all for arriving. I consider your arrivals to be successes in themselves, considering how difficult I made this cabin to reach."  
"Quit flattering us, Malfoy, a short, fat man grumbled. "Why have you decided to salt old wounds?"  
Malfoy stared coldly at the fat man. "If you will kindly allow me to continue, I will be more than happy to elaborate." The fat man bowed under his gaze. "Now then." He addressed the whole table. "What do you know of the Purge?"  
The room was dead silent. Angry glares flashed at Malfoy, but none dared raise their voice.  
Malfoy surveyed the room. "Very well. I didn't want to speak of it, but since no one else is willing to…" He cleared his throat authoritatively. "As you are all aware, our circle used to be vastly larger than you see it today. At one point, we spanned nearly all of Europe, and were but a step away from bringing the whole world under our control."  
"But then he happened," a long-nosed man growled. His grip shook the mug in his hand, his knuckles white with rage.  
Malfoy paused. Then: "Quite so. On the verge of victory, one man stood in our way, snatching triumph from within our grasp."  
"We know this already," Magnus stated. His voice was perfectly even, but his eyes were not so concealing. "Never forget that you were there as well, Malfoy, so failure is partly your fault as well."  
No one said a word. Magnus saw that, though they dared not speak, many agreed with him.  
Malfoy fixed his gaze on Magnus. "Need I remind you of your experience, Magnus? Should we consider that a failure as well?" Magnus held under Malfoy's stare, but stayed his tongue.  
"Fear not," Malfoy told the table. "I have not called you here to stir up hard feelings, but to offer hope. Inara." The redheaded woman leaned forward and placed a small device on the table. "Which of you recognizes this device?"  
"A simple time-turner," Erin observed.  
Malfoy nodded his approval. "Indeed. And now I must ask you to bear this in mind as I once again draw your attention to the Purge. As you know, when our master fell, utter chaos was unleashed. As our enemy claimed success over our lord, he gathered his own forces, proceeding to hunt down our family, until we became all that remain."  
"Where are you going with this?" the fat man asked.  
"I am saying that now, many years later, with nearly all of our resources depleted or destroyed, our followers abandoned or dead, reclaiming our former glory borders on impossible. But" He held a long, bony finger in the air. "What if our fates could be averted?"


	2. A Paradoxical Paradise

The sun beamed down through the golden trees. Leaves gently drifted down from the branches. The world seemed to have settled into a peaceful slumber, and as four particular individuals arrived at one particular house, it was as though time itself had simply decided to stop moving forward and instead pause serenely out of sheer contentedness.

"Open," Harry Potter commanded. The front door of the house clicked and swung open silently. He gestured to the open doorway, and his wife and two friends stepped inside ahead of him.

The three-story house was an open, friendly place. Large windows let generous amounts of sunlight into the bigger-on-the-inside rooms. The furniture, covered in a unique fabric, would twist and wriggle pleasantly under you until you were as comfortable as could be. A screen porch rested on one side of the house, allowing whoever sat on its glider to observe the outdoors without risk of insects or pests, and yet still receive the soothing touch of a cool autumn breeze.

This was the place where Harry Potter and his wife, Ginerva "Ginny" Potter, lived with their three children. The Potters were a happy family. Harry worked as an Auror for the Ministry of Magic, and his children were proud to have a veritable war hero as a father. Every night, Harry would tell his children stories of his adventures before bed. His children were enraptured every night without fail. Over and over again they asked him to tell the stories of his career as an Auror, each time the same expression of wonder coming over their young faces. But their favorite story of all was the story of how he had defeated Voldemort and saved the world. Night after night after night they pleaded with him to describe the final battle, and he would merely smile patiently and tell it again. Sometimes, to humor them, he would stand up and act out parts of the battle, making his children laugh as he pretended to be Voldemort and put on a bug-eyed expression at the moment of his defeat. Then Ginny would lean in and gently admonish him for behaving so. Afterwards, the children would head to bed, and Harry and Ginny would tuck them in for the night. And every night, as he left his children's rooms, he would gently close their doors, and be practically overcome with the thought of how truly fortunate he was.

But now his two eldest had gone off to Hogwarts. His youngest, still too young to begin her first term, had opted for a week-long stay at a friend's house. The day afterwards, Harry had walked through the house. The place seemed much larger somehow, and its emptiness was uncomfortable to say the least. Ginny had taken it the hardest. More than once, Harry had found her sitting next to the children's beds, staring forlornly at them. It was at these times that Harry would come in, sit down next to her, gently put his arm around her, and tenderly remind her that they were not gone forever, that they were going to Hogwarts, the greatest school of magic ever created. And, he would add in a loving whisper, that Lily would be back in less than a week. This would cheer Ginny up, and then they would go about their normal duties.

However, until Lily returned, the house retained its strange, empty feel, and try as he might to console Ginny, Harry battled his own loneliness. It was a strange thing to walk down the hallways, once so full of joy and life, and to hear nothing but cold, almost echoing footsteps on the hardwood floors. Harry tried his best to distract himself with his work. The position of Head of the Auror Office generated a workload that would have overwhelmed a lesser man, but to Harry, it was merely a slight diversion from the real problem. Somehow, whenever he signed a form, or filed a report, or stamped a piece of paper that had just arrived on his desk, he took no more notice of it than one would of a fly buzzing in the far corner of a far room.

He hadn't expected this. When Albus and James had stepped on the Hogwarts Express only a few weeks ago, Harry had felt right then and there that he must be the proudest father who had ever lived. He remembered thinking that it would be an adjustment to come home from work and find himself greeted by only two loved ones instead of four. Still, he had told himself, it would not be for naught. The boys were off to begin their education, and that was all mattered. Even so, more than once Harry had found himself calling their names, and receiving nothing but silence. It was in this time that Lily become exceptionally important, in that she would help both her parents to feel better when they were missing the boys. But then came that fateful day when she received an owl inviting her to spend the week at her friend's house (Harry could never remember which one, although he would never admit it to anyone. Lily had a multitude of friends, so many that Harry had difficulty remembering all their faces and names. It seemed, however, that Ginny had no such trouble). Ginny had given her permission, and off Lily went. It was soon afterwards that the true loneliness sank in.

In light of this, Ginny had suggested inviting over their old friends Ron and Hermione Weasley for a social call. Harry agreed immediately. And so they had written to the Weasleys, who, upon accepting the invitation, had arranged for their son Hugo to have a play date, and then arrived via flying car. Ever since Muggles had created their own flying cars, owning one had become legal according to the Ministry of Magic, so long as the flight mechanism was "mechanical" (to borrow a Muggle term) as opposed to magical. Ron had been ecstatic upon buying his own only a short time ago, and as Harry and his friends settled into the house, Harry thought for a brief moment that he could see the same smile on Ron's face that he had worn when he had flown the car off the dealership lot for the first time.

"Accio," Ginny whispered. Without a sound, a bottle of chilled butterbeer and four drinking glasses glided into the room from the kitchen. The drinks poured themselves and floated up to the seated guests.  
Ron took a deep swing. "I never realized just how much better the homemade kind is."  
Ginny smiled. "My own recipe."  
"So," Harry said, taking a seat himself. "How is the new car working for you?"  
Ron's face lit up like a Christmas tree. Hermione sighed good-naturedly. "You had to ask." Contentedly, she settled into her chair.  
Ron immediately launched into a detailed explanation of the car. Happily, he explained how the hover-conversion enabled the flight mechanism to run on the same substance as the normal method of propulsion, something Muggles referred to as "gasoline". Politely, Harry and Ginny both plied him with questions over the car's exact capabilities, and Ron answered every one of them. Hermione sat by silently, smiling but looking rather bored. In between questions, Harry recalled that, though the properties and workings of magic were fascinating to her, the so-called "science" and "technology" of the Muggle world held almost no interest for her.  
Presently, the conversation moved on to other topics. Ginny and Hermione gradually took over, discussing the finer points of spellcrafting. Harry and Ron sat by quietly, occasionally commenting on the passage of the conversation, but mostly remaining silent. Eventually, Ginny and Hermione got up as Ginny wished to show Hermione her kitchen (she had augmented it with a few spells of her own design), and Ron and Harry were left alone.  
"Harry stood up. "Would you care to join me?"  
He led the way out onto the side porch, Ron behind him. The two sat down on the glider, calmly observing the day.  
At long last, Harry spoke. "What have we become, Ron?"  
"What?" Ron was in the middle of refilling his glass from the flying butterbeer bottle.  
Harry ignored him. "We've come so far in such a short amount of time. We've gone from the two scared little kids who ran into each other on the Hogwarts express to… this." He gestured vaguely at everything.  
Ron took a drink. "What about it? Are you saying you're not happy?"  
Harry was silent. Then: "'Here we are on top the world…'"  
Ron perked up. "That's a line from the Tale of the Mapmakers."  
"It is. I just thought it seemed oddly appropriate." Harry turned to Ron. "What is left, Ron?" We've accomplished everything. Now we have nothing left, no goals to achieve."  
"What brought this on?"  
Harry thought. "It's been weighing on my mind for some time now." He clenched his fist. A strange headache pounded through his head, and he rested it in his unoccupied hand.  
Ron seemed not to notice. "Don't talk like that. We've done enough. Now is the time for us to lay down our burdens and enjoy the fine things in life." He raised his glass. "To success."  
Smiling, Harry likewise raised his glass. "To good health and just rewards." He and Ron clinked their glasses.  
Voices drifted in from the adjacent room. "Shall we?" Harry said.  
As he and Ron joined their wives back in the room, Harry thought for a moment. Ron was right. There was no point worrying about anything. He had a loving wife, fantastic kids, a successful career, and the best friends in the world. All was as it should be.  
Suddenly Harry was hurled back against the wall. A scream was torn from his lungs as his vision exploded in a whirlwind of colors. A howling wind rushed through the room. His scar burned with the heat of a thousand fires, burned like it hadn't in 19 years. Through the pain he forced his eyes open.  
The world had transformed. Gone was the living room. Gone were his friends. Instead, he beheld a raging vortex of energy, one that swept across the landscape in an endless gust of almighty wind. The blinding light of the storm burned his eyes, and he strained to shut them again. His head felt like it was splitting open. He tried to scream. But his lungs were empty.  
"Harry!" Out of the maelstrom Harry heard his voice being called. Hermione. Her voice sounded distorted and warped as she called his name again. Then he saw her.  
Clinging desperately to the ground, Hermione crawled out of the chaos of the energy storm towards where he was pinned to the wall, immobilized. She called his name one final time, straining dreadfully to be heard above the terrible howling.  
"Hermione!" Harry screamed back. His own voice startled him, and had he not be caught in the storm, he felt surely he would have laughed. "What's going on?"  
"It's the end of us, Harry!" Hermione cried. "It's a temporal incursion!"  
As if to underline her words, a piece of a house flew by, spinning as Harry saw it crumble to dust.  
"What is it?"  
"Time is dying!" Hermione screamed. She reached Harry and began clawing her way up the remains of the rapidly-deteriorating wall.  
Harry said nothing. The maelstrom was increasing in intensity, and he could no longer fill his lungs from the strength of the storm. Wordlessly, he looked desperately at Hermione, his eyes begging for any, ANY glimmer of hope.  
Hermione read his eyes. "I have an idea!" She raised her wand, forcing it against the scar on his forehead. Frantically she began whispering an incantation Harry couldn't hear over the chaos. Then his eyes widened in horror.  
Hermione appeared to be aging rapidly. Her hair because streaked with grey. Her skin began collecting folds as she kept whispering fervently. At last she drew back and shouted "That's it! That's all I can-" In that instant, Harry was no longer looking at Hermione, but a bare skull, it's eye sockets gaping, it's jaw hanging loosely down in a sardonic smile. Harry tried once more to scream. But he had no air to scream with. Then the skull disintegrated into dust and blew away in the winds of the maelstrom.  
Harry looked up. A great dark void appeared to be sweeping across the landscape, consuming everything in its path. It reached Harry, and his whole body shuddered as a chill, a vast, empty, absolute coldness touched his flesh. Harry felt himself fading, wasting away into nothingness. In the split second before he ceased to exist, a single tear slid down his cheek.

**At long last I have updated this chapter. Thank you again for your patience. I am now working on Chapter 3 "The Oncoming Storm". Thank all again. Please enjoy the new material.**


	3. The Oncoming Storm

The compartment was dark and stuffy. One cold light from the driver's cabin shone thinly through the tiny window in the wall separating the driver and the twelve Aurors seated in the back.  
No one said a word as the compartment jostled and shook slightly from the winds outside. One of them began eating, the crunching noise sounding strange and out of place in the dim light. The other Aurors glared at her, but she ignored them, and they said nothing.  
These were not just any Aurors. These were the special ops variety. Every one of them had been handpicked for this mission. And at the very end of the hard metal bench on which six of the Aurors sat on the left side of the compartment sat a very particular Auror, one who answered to the name of Harry Potter.  
Harry was 19 years old. Having joined the Ministry of Magic following the defeat of Voldemort, Harry had quickly proven a competent Auror. Some whispered behind his back that Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister of Magic and Harry's boss, gave him easy missions out of personal favor, but these were not many, and they were not paid much attention. It was true that Harry had advanced quickly in his career, but many people attributed this to his talents and skills that had let him defeat Voldemort. In fact, it was due to this that Shacklebolt actually entrusted him with more dangerous missions than he did most other Aurors.  
This particular mission was no exception. Shacklebolt had called Harry to his office that very morning. Calmly, he had explained to Harry that a new threat had arisen, and that only the best Aurors could be entrusted with it. He had handed Harry a thick folder with a multitude of papers spilling out, outlining the Aurors Shacklebolt had chosen.  
Now, the Auror team was en route via a new type of transportation, something the Muggles called "airships". They were remarkable devices, having been designed by Arthur Weasley, who, in his spare time, had worked out some of the kinks in his "flying car" design and sent the schematics to Kingsley Shacklebolt, saying that they might come in handy. Shacklebolt had looked over the plans and agreed, saying that it most certainly could be useful for Auror operations. And this operation was one such instance.  
The hungry Auror had finished her food. She loudly crumpled up the wrapper and stuck it in her pocket. Harry ignored the noise as he reviewed the mission in his head.  
The target of the mission was a wizard family called the Denvals. The name wasn't well known, but they had played a key part in the last Wizarding War. Unknown to virtually all other Death Eaters, the Denvals were Voldemort's right-hand wizards, handling the most dangerous and secret of assignments. They and Voldemort never met in person as a rule. Instead, Voldemort kept a very secret, very secure method of contacting them, and this had enabled him to covertly carry out operations all across the country and, to a lesser extent, the world. The Denvals were numerous at first, but their numbers dwindled due to the extreme risk provided by their assignments. A great many of them had died at the Battle of Hogwarts. After that, the remnants had gone into hiding, and their tracks had been covered so well that the Ministry had no knowledge of them at all.  
Recently, the Ministry had gained Intel concerning them, and therefore had learned of their existence. At this point in time, there were only two left, and they had holed up in the most secure building anyone at the Ministry had any knowledge of. In part, this led to the inclusion of the airships in this mission. Arthur Weasley had outfitted them with every stealth charm in existence. Because, he had reasoned, the Denvals had no knowledge of such devices. They would expect traditional attacks on their strongholds, which would trigger anti-Auror defenses. However, the airships were unconventional, and therefore were more likely to even the odds.  
And now Harry and the other Aurors were cramped inside these airships on their way to the Denval stronghold. The invisibility charms were working excellently, and as far as anyone knew, the Denvals hadn't the slightest idea that they were coming.

"We're approaching the stronghold now, sir," the airship's pilot called. The compartment began shaking. Grabbing a nearby handle, Harry gritted his teeth, thankful he hadn't had anything for dinner.  
The shaking intensified. "Sorry about the turbulence," the pilot apologized. "These Unplottable spells are a bit difficult to break through." One of the Aurors gave him a dirty look, and another looked like he was about to start retching.  
Abruptly, the shaking stopped. Harry stood up and peered through the tiny window.  
Before them loomed the Denval stronghold in the distance. Dark and deceptively run down, the sheer size of the structure dwarfed the old Malfoy mansion. Of course, Harry reminded himself, this area served a different purpose entirely. The Denvals had placed their Unplottable Charms far beyond just the house. The land was massive. Through the airship's windshield, Harry could see what looked like a field for farming, an orchard of fruit trees, several warehouses for storing supplies and tools, a pasture with a herd of grazing cattle, and even a small lake. It was more than just a shelter. It was a tiny, self-contained world.  
"Set us down over there," Harry said, pointing to the orchard. The airship banked to starboard, descending rapidly. A second and third airship followed suit, as shown on the controls of the cockpit, while the remaining two turned and flew off into the sky. These ships did not carry Aurors, but rather powerful Apparition Network equipment. The ships would generate powerful anti-Apparition spells, more powerful than the ones that protected Hogwarts, in order to prevent the Denvals from escaping. In addition, they would monitor all Apparition Network activity, so that, if by some miracle, the Denvals managed to break through, the Ministry would still know where they had gone. Harry had speculated that the Denvals had managed to avoid detection on the Network before, and so had insisted on bringing special equipment.  
The door slid open silently, revealing a dark row of fruit trees. "Invisibility cloaks on," Harry ordered quietly. The Aurors slipped their invisibility cloaks over their heads. Unlike Harry's Cloak, which he was just now slipping over his head, these cloaks were specially modified by the Ministry so that the Aurors wearing them were visible to each other, but not the enemy. Harry climbed out, landing silently on the soft ground. Nearby, he could see the Aurors from the second ship disembarking. Harry waved them into formation, and then gave the signal to move out.

Silent as ghosts, the Aurors sprinted across the landscape. Harry led the charge, occasionally giving hand signals about where exactly the team should travel. More often than he would have liked, Aurors kneeled down and whispered a few words before a small CRACK broke the silence. The Denvals hadn't been fools. Apparently worried that their stronghold would be found and infiltrated, they had placed a number of trap spells around the property, each of which would undoubtedly set off a silent magical alarm once tripped, along with other, nasty things that would happen to the Auror unlucky enough to step on one.  
Harry waved his wand and whispered a few words. The trap he had almost stepped on made a sizzling noise and dissipated. He waved the Aurors forward.  
A few minutes later they arrived at the mansion. The dark windows stared down at them, as though they were unwanted guests intruded at a fancy, formal party. Moss covered the foundation like a blanket. Ancient, crumbling stone carapaces jutted out from the structure, a grim warning to all who may dare to enter. Harry led the way up to the wall. The stone stared back defiantly, almost daring him to try to break in.  
"Geron. Firenzin," he whispered. The two Aurors silently dashed forward. "With me." Together they pointed their wands at the wall, chanting quietly under their breaths. A ripple shot through a circular area on the wall. Harry motioned some of the Aurors through the now-intangible stone, telling the others to circle around and breach at another spot. Then he pulled his Invisibility Cloak tighter and stepped through.  
The corridor he entered was grimy and rancid. Only a small, sputtering torch on the wall illuminated the dank, slimy stone. Harry winced as the smell hit him, and he clenched his jaw to keep from retching.  
Advancing slowly down the corridor, Harry paused to listen for any sound that could indicate danger. Though there were only two Denvals, they were fierce fighters, especially when cornered. With nowhere to run and nothing to lose, Harry was worried about a possible suicide run, which could potentially cost the lives of half the team.  
Abruptly Harry held up his hand. A man had stepped into the corridor. Short and stocky, the man swept his gaze over the corridor, apparently not noticing the smell. His eyes passed though the silent, invisible Aurors, and then he looked directly into Harry's eyes. Harry held his breath apprehensively.  
The man walked slowly toward them, a strange look on his face. Harry held his breath. The man turned his head, as if listening for something. The invisible Aurors froze. No one made a sound.  
Suddenly the man's hand flashed to his side. "Stupefy!" Harry shouted. The man slumped to the ground. Harry held his breath. He couldn't quite be sure, but he thought he could hear his shout echoing down the corridor, almost mocking him with its persistence.  
Harry pushed the thought out of his mind. He waved an Auror forward. "Find a safe place and keep him unconscious." The Auror nodded silently.  
Perhaps Harry should have been concerned about someone hearing his shout, but at the moment, he wasn't worried. After all, with 24 Aurors on his side, what was there to worry about? It occurred to Harry that they were still hunting the remaining Denval on his or her own turf, but nevertheless, considering how easily the first Denval had been captured, he felt confident enough to signal the Aurors to remove their invisibility cloaks.  
Harry led the Aurors through a maze of corridors, stopping frequently to listen for sounds of the second Denval. How long they wandered through the labyrinth, he never knew, but at last they came upon a narrow stone staircase that led up and out of the basement. Harry made for it eagerly. However, as he put his foot on the first step of the stairs, something very peculiar happened.  
Suddenly Harry's head twisted to one side. He clutched his forehead with one hand as his scar seared with pain. It was not the old pain from before, no, this pain was electrifying, tearing through his head like a lightning storm trapped in a bottle, and as the stairs swam before his eyes, he briefly thought his scar was glowing.  
Abruptly his vision went dark. "Harry!" a voice called to him. He searched for the source of the voice. It sounded familiar, somehow, almost like…  
And then he saw her. Hermione, standing before him, was urgently calling out his name. She looked older, somehow, and though she appeared to be almost 2 decades older then when last he saw her, it was unmistakably Hermione Granger. "Find Hermione!" the vision shouted, sounding desperate. "Flaming sands! Flaming sands!" Then the vision faded into nothing, and with it the searing pain in his forehead.  
What the bloody HELL was that? Harry demanded of himself as his vision came back into focus.  
"Are you alright, sir?" an Auror asked him. Harry looked up. He was on his knees in front of the staircase. The Aurors stared at him, looking worried. "You dropped to your knees and started clutching your head like it was going to explode. Should I take over while you head back to the ships?"  
Harry sucked in a breath. "No, that won't be necessary." He forced himself to his feet. Then, with one last shake of his head, he forced the incident to the back of his mind and led the way up the stairs.

The stairs led them to a wide, tall hallway decorated with massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Quickly Harry led the Aurors through it. To himself, he was thankful the Aurors had learned to move silently. The floor, being hardwood, normally would have been the worst possible surface they could have traveled across, and yet the Aurors were so quiet that not even Harry's sharp ears could detect the slightest noise as his team sprinted across.  
Harry gave the signal to stop. Ahead of them, in the huge doorway, a woman was slowly walking across the opening, apparently absorbed in whatever book she was holding, thus preventing her from seeing the Auror team standing in the hallway perpendicular to her own. Satisfied, Harry again raised his wand, the spell ready in his mind. But then he paused, and the slight smile he had been wearing dropped off his face faster than the blink of an eye.  
A man's voice echoed up the hallway, and the woman looked up in acknowledgement. "Cloaks!" Harry spat through gritted teeth. Every Auror quickly pulled an invisibility cloak over his or her own head just in time to avoid being seen by the man who had joined the woman in the hallway entrance. The man exchanged a few words with the woman, and the both departed back down the corridor.  
Harry let out a breath, his heart pounding.  
"Should I take them, sir?" an Auror whispered through her cloak.  
"No," Harry ordered. "I don't like this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metallic device. This was another device courtesy of Arthur Weasley. Derived from a Muggle device known as a telephone, Mr. Weasley had apparently taken to heart the advice Harry had given him about such a device many years ago and had created a magical equivalent.  
"Martin," he whispered into the device, feeling slightly foolish.  
Martin's voice echoed from the device. "Apologies, sir. We ran into trouble. Jacobs ran into a nasty trap spell. We stopped the alarm spell in time, but he's in terrible condition. Some of my men are taking him to a safe place now."  
"Martin, listen. There are more Denvals here. We saw three, they are probably not alone."  
There was a silence. "Are you surprised, sir?"  
"Somehow I am, even though I shouldn't be. Meet up with us at the spot where my team entered."  
"Yes, sir." The call ended. Harry stood up and signaled to move out.  
He led the team back along the way they came. The stairs they found easily enough, but as they went down, the noticed that the stairs started to twist and turn, with portraits now hung on the walls. The occupants looked up suspiciously as they passed, but seeing nothing and hearing only the very small amount of noise one Auror had accidentally made while scratching his nose, they quickly became bored and settled back into whatever they had been doing.  
Harry, meanwhile, was growing increasingly desperate to find the basement they had come from. As they travelled through the corridors the stairs had led them to, one of the Aurors glanced out of a window (which shouldn't have been there anyway) and was shocked to discover that they were on the fourth floor of the enormous building.  
One of the Aurors tapped Harry on the shoulder. Excitedly, she used the Auror sign language to explain that they were seeing a large-scale effect of a powerful Scramble spell.  
Still leading the way, Harry signed over his shoulder that the Scramble spell was only a developing spell, and had only worked on small objects and tended to deteriorate very quickly.  
The Auror replied that the Denvals, being as advanced as they were, had evidently found a way to make the spell larger and persist longer, the end result being that the building's corridors and layout would change at random times into random configurations. She added that this was likely a spell designed to confound intruders, and that perhaps the Denvals themselves negated this by having the new layout of the house transmitted to their minds via a modified Legilimency spell. But, she explained apologetically, that was only a theory.

Quietly, Harry informed the others, learning that they, too, were encountering difficulties. Harry bit the inside of his cheek. He didn't like being separated from the rest of the Aurors for such a long time on such a dangerous mission. Looking ahead determinedly, he issued a new order.  
"Take out every Denval you encounter, but do so silently," he instructed. The leader of the second team acknowledged.  
The Aurors advanced, so silent they appeared as shadows of ghosts. The chambers and corridors of the building twisted and turned as they relentlessly marched ahead. Whenever a Denval appeared, Harry or another Auror would stun him, dash forward to catch the falling body, and conceal him using an invisibility spell.  
Once, the Auror team rounded a corner to find a young woman walking straight towards them down a long hallway. The woman stared straight ahead, oblivious to the invisible Ministry of Magic agents in front of her. Harry raised his wand, taking aim at her head.  
Suddenly, one of the Aurors accidentally bumped a nearby table. A vase wobbled over the edge. The Auror dashed forward. As she reached out to catch it, her invisibility cloak slipped off her hand, revealing a disembodied, floating hand to the woman.  
The woman stared for a split second. "Intruders!" she cried. She launched herself sideways, drawing her wand and firing a blood-red bolt of light into the ceiling as she did so.  
The ceiling exploded in pulsing red light. A piercing siren rang through the building as Harry lunged forward and killed the woman with a blasting curse. "Go loud!" he yelled as the Aurors invisibility cloaks became visible of their own accord.  
Curses began flying out of every passageway. Harry dropped and rolled behind cover as an Auror exploded in blood to his left. He gritted his teeth as he raised his wand and began firing killing curses.  
"Go!" he cried above the curses. Through the storm of magic, the Aurors sprinted out of the hallway, finding themselves in a large dining hall. "Accio!" Harry shouted. Large tables flew from a corner of the dining hall, coming to rest in defensive positions as Denvals poured in from all directions.  
"Fire at will!" Harry voice was lost in the chaos. A green Killing Curse whizzed by his ear. "Confringo!" The explosion hurled the caster into the wall, breaking his neck.  
Smoke billowed into the room. Curses buzzed through the air. Two more Aurors fell dead. Harry felt a curse slash his cheek, hot blood pouring from the wound. "Sectumsempra!" he called, waving his wand madly. Denvals collapsed in a gigantic pool of blood, still twitching.  
All at once a barking noise pierced the air. Gigantic 3-headed dogs charged out of passageways, snarling as they leapt upon the Aurors. Harry was unpleasantly reminded of the dog Fluffy, which he had encountered during his first year at Hogwarts.  
A dog jumped in front of him, its many heads growling at him as it effortlessly knocked away the table he had been using for cover.  
"Avada Kedavra!" Harry cried. The dog stiffened as the curse struck it, collapsing in the ever-widening pool of blood. Harry crouched behind the corpse and continued firing.  
Suddenly, the wall and roof exploded in a blast of light. The Auror airships firing their powerful curse generation spells into ranks of the Denvals, kicking up an ocean of blood. Harry signaled the ships to hold their fire. The day belonged to the Aurors.

Harry stepped over the bodies, careful to avoid the many pools of blood. The faces of the dead Denvals stared blankly up at him, their faces contorted in every emotion from rage to ecstasy. Ignoring the cold eyes gazing at him, he surveyed the scene.  
The Aurors were laboriously picking through the wreckage of the Denvals' house. Some were stacking the dead bodies into a huge pile, which one of them proceeded to light on fire with magic. Other Aurors searched through the debris, hoping to find something of value. In the middle of the collapsed building, the last surviving Denvals knelt with their hands interlaced behind their heads. 5 Aurors stood by, holding them at wandpoint.  
A grizzled old Auror with a face scar strode up to Harry. "What news?" Harry asked.  
"Good and bad," the Auror replied. "The Denvals managed to destroy most of their spellbooks. Turns out that they were into spellcrafting, which would explain the scramble spell on the building. However, we DID manage to find the flight spell Voldemort used during the Second War." He handed Harry a piece of paper. It was a burned-off page detailing instructions for the spell. Harry glanced at it before shoving it in his pocket. "What about other survivors?"  
"The only survivors are over there." The Auror gestured to the prisoners. "We searched the entire compound, and found no one, except for a coward trying to run away. But other than that, anything of value was either destroyed or lost in the fight."  
Harry sighed. "I was hoping to learn more about these people, to find out just how they made Voldemort so powerful and when he recruited them."  
The Auror shrugged. "I'm sorry, sir. I can only give you what we have."  
Harry nodded. "Very well. Bring in the ship."  
He strode over the kneeling Denvals. Signaling the other Aurors, he pulled out a piece of parchment. "Denval family, on this day, you are hereby accused of the following crimes of treason against the country of England and all her citizens, be they Muggle, wizard, or witch. You have aided a known criminal of war, Tom Marvolo Riddle, a.k.a. Voldemort, in two concentrated efforts to wage war against and overthrow the wizard government…"  
Harry continued to read the parchment aloud, listing the crimes of the Denvals. He read about the countless murders, the attack on Hogwarts, the overthrow of the Ministry of Magic, and the countless hate crimes against Muggles, to name a few. With each new crime, Harry saw the faces of his dead friends, the many who had died for him, and he could feel himself getting angrier and angrier, until he was practically choking with rage.  
"For this, you are sentenced to the worst punishment conceivable by wizardkind." Harry rolled up the parchment as a nearby airship flew overhead, landing with a dull thud.  
"Patronuses!"  
The Aurors waved their wands, the white, shimmery forms of their Patronuses erupting from the ends. Harry's stag Patronus stood by as Harry signaled for the doors of the ship to be opened.  
Inside the ship was pure darkness. Then, a dark, hooded figure floated out, sniffing at the air. Its dark hand clutched at the metal as it felt the Patronuses, but the smell of souls lured it from its cold prison.  
The Dementor floated up to the first Denval, grabbing his head before proceeding to perform the Dementor's Kiss. The man struggled at first, but then relaxed. The Dementor moved away and began on the next man.  
One by one, the Dementor moved down the line, sucking out the souls of all the Denvals. A few of them, terrified, tried to Apparate or run, but the Aurors stopped them and brought them back, until at last all the prisoners were little more than empty shells.  
Harry turned his back, trying to hold his composure. Even after everything he had experienced, seeing the Dementor's Kiss performed was difficult to watch. As he tried not to think about what had just happened behind him, for a split second, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he spied the terrified face of a young boy peering at him from behind a large piece of stone protruding from the ground. Harry turned. There was no boy.  
Frowning, Harry pulled out his communication device. "Airship patrol, are you still monitoring the surrounding area?"  
"We never stopped, sir."  
"Have you detected anything out of the ordinary? Maybe an escaped Denval or an Apparition by any chance?"  
"Nothing, sir. No Apparitions, no runners, nothing. Why, sir?"  
I must be going mad! Harry thought. Out loud, he said "Just checking." He snapped the device shut. Glancing around, he saw the Dementor had been herded back into its cage.  
Harry gave some final instructions to the Aurors, and before long, the Aurors had filed back into the airships and were speeding back to the Ministry of Magic, leaving behind only a smoking ruin of a nightmare long dead.

"Nothing, nothing, nothing, and more nothing." Harry stood in the Healer's Office at the Ministry of Magic. The green-robed healer was pointing to magical images conjured to display different aspects of Harry's health, ticking off the pictures he passed them by. "I can find absolutely nothing wrong with you," the healer pronounced. "You're in perfect health."

Harry drummed his fingers on a nearby desk. "Are you sure? If I'm unfit for duty, I need to know about it."

"The only thing out of the ordinary about you is that knot of flesh on your forehead." The healer pointed to Harry's scar. "It's the strangest abnormality I've ever encountered. The magical properties it possesses didn't end when Old Flatface blasted you with that Killing Curse. It's still got all kinds of weird quirks that I can't even begin to fathom. But, it doesn't seem to be inhibiting your abilities, so I guess I can give you a green light." The healer pulled out a quill and began scratching on a piece of parchment. "However, I really wish you would let me fix your eyes. Those glasses you insist on wearing can't be helping much."

Harry fingered his glasses. "I've been considering getting them fixed since I first found out about magic. Is it true that the procedure is still as dangerous as it used to be?" "Well, yes, but I think it would be worth it." "Perhaps, but I'm not willing to risk it right now, especially since these have worked so well for me for so long. Besides-" he put the glasses back on his nose. "They've grown on me.

The healer shrugged. "I guess we're done here."

Harry walked out of the healer's office, barely noticing the buzz of the Ministry of Magic around him. As he strode through the busy hallways, many people turned to say hi to him, and though he waved back politely, his mind was far from them. Sitting down in his office, he proceeded to file a report about the raid, which he then folded into a neat paper airplane and threw out his door. Sighing, he pulled open the left drawer of his desk and took out a bottle of butterbeer and a mug. The ice-cold drink hurt his teeth as it slid down his throat, causing him to winch slightly. Technically, food wasn't allowed at Auror's desks, but in Harry's case, Shacklebolt tended to look the other way.

Harry turned to the small pile of unanswered correspondence on the corner of his desk and began sifting through it. The letter from Ginny he had been expecting wasn't there, and in its place was a folder containing reports of thestral thefts.

_Thefts, my foot_, Harry thought somewhat irritably. _Breed flying horses you can't see and you're bound to lose them. What did they expect?_

At the bottom of the pile was an invitation from Ron to go get a drink at the Three Broomsticks. Harry checked the time. According to the letter, Ron was due back from transporting several convicts to prison. Harry scratched some notes onto the last few reports, and headed out.

"Hi Harry!" Ron called, putting down the parchment he was working on.

"Good to see you, Ron," Harry grinned. "Ready for that drink?"

"… And the healer couldn't find anything wrong," Harry said, finishing up the last of his drink. The Three Broomsticks was crowded wall-to-wall, patrons busy drinking to each other's health and swapping stories. Ever since the end of the Second War, the place had been a popular spot for off-duty Aurors, and Harry and Ron were no exceptions. Harry took the opportunity to tell his friend about the strange events he had witnessed.

Ron pondered his friend's words. "Ordinarily I'd say Voldemort was messing with you, but he can't exactly attack you from the grave. Have you been working on your Occlumency?"

Harry chewed the inside of his cheek. "I've brushed up on it, but I wouldn't say I'm good at it."

Again, Ron thought in silence. Then he said, "Do you have any idea what that phrase "flaming sands" means?" "Not a clue." "Then I think there's only one thing left to do," Ron said, draining the last of his butterbeer. "It's time to go see Hermione."

Hermione, as it turned out, was busy in the field as part of her job for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. The Department had sent a team of researchers to a distant sector of England to study a rather large colony of Acromantulas. Acromantulas were not native to England, and so the colony had been formed under suspicious circumstances. The Departments researchers were busy investigating, bringing the colony under control and assessing options of transporting them to a safe location, in addition to predicting the possible spread of Acromantulas across the country.

Harry and Ron Apparated just outside the Department camp. Ron, though now an Auror, still clenched his wand tightly in his fist at the thought of giant spiders. The tents of the camp lay below the hill on which the two Aurors arrived. Researchers bustled about, sharing research and calling out figures to each other as Harry and Ron made their way down the hill and into the camp.

A researcher, who had taken a pause between wrestling baby Acromantulas into cages, told them that Hermione Granger was currently out in the field on her own, surveying the land. Shortly, Harry and Ron arrived at the spot, and found Hermione atop a small hill gazing across the landscape.

"Harry! Ron!" she cried happily, dashing to meet them. She ran to Ron first, giving him a great big hug and a kiss for good measure. Then she turned to Harry and gave him a great big hug of his own. Harry smiled broadly.

After exchanging pleasantries and sitting down on some nearby rocks, Hermione asked, "What brings you two out here?"

Harry recounted the strange event. Hermione listened intently, her face growing graver and graver with every passing word. Until at last, when Harry uttered the words "flaming sands", she practically dropped her wand from her numb fingers.

"Can you make anything of it?" Ron asked, a bit confusedly.

Hermione appeared not to have heard him. "So it seems my theory was correct," she whispered quietly.

"Theory?"

Hermione blinked. "Yes. You see- (here she turned to Harry) –ever since I first learned of the magical properties your scar possessed, I began to wonder whether it was possible that it acquired other, more potent attributes. Remember that time you and I traveled with the Time Turner?" "I do, yes." "The incident caused me to form a working theory that it was possible that your scar could become imbued with temporal properties. If this were the case, than this would, in effect, grant you certain advantages, time-wise. One part of my theory worked in conjunction with the instructions I was given when I first received the Time Turner. I was advised to create a special code, meant for communicating with myself in the past, if necessary. With the theoretical properties of your scar, I postulated that it would be possible to use your scar to send messages back down your personal timeline, effectively letting us communicate with you in the past. The incident you describe appears to confirm this. However, from the way you witnessed it, it seems there is more to the message than you saw." She picked up her wand. "May I see your forehead?"

Harry leaned forward. "You too, Ron," Hermione instructed. Ron leaned in close. Hermione pointed her wand at Harry's scar, quietly intoning a spell under her breath. For a moment it seemed nothing happened. And then Harry's vision went black.

Once again, Older Hermione stood before him. "Hello Hermione, Harry, and presumably Ron. If you have received this message, then my efforts have been successful: I have sent a message back through time." She started to pace. "Something has happened to time. Harry, Ron, in case my past self hasn't explained to you, the term 'flaming sands' is a term I devised to communicate a very specific, very dangerous event to myself in the past: a temporal incursion." For some reason he could not explain, Harry shivered. "A temporal incursion is an extremely high-level change in time. Normally, if one makes small changes to the past, a form of the original future is maintain, albeit with a few minor changes. An incursion is a change so extreme that the future is entirely wiped out and rewritten from the ground up. Ordinarily it's harmless, but time travelers feel the effects quite dramatically. That's why I have called you. Someone is meddling with time. Ron, Ginny, and everyone has disappeared into nothing in the wake of the incursion inflicted on this future. Even as I transcribe this message into Harry's scar, I can feel myself fading away. I have sent this message as close to the point of change as I can, but never having done this before, I fear my aim will be slightly off." She looked directly at Harry. "You must stop the incursion. You must save the future." The message terminated.

Harry blinked, coming back to reality. "You saw that, too, right?"

Hermione stared away into the distance. For a long while she sat, pondering. At last she said, "We need help." Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small, sleek device, which Harry recognized as a Muggle cell phone.

"What are you doing?" Ron asked.

Hermione flipped open the phone and began to dial. "There's only one man in the universe that can help us now."

Far away, a very strange man sat in a very strange room. The man was busy coloring with crayons in a coloring book, happily scratching away without a care in the world. Suddenly, a phone rang on the console in the center of the room. The man sprang up and, dashing over to the console, grabbed it from its cradle. "Hello?" He listened for a moment. "I'm on my way." Hanging up, he quickly began pulling levers, mashing buttons, and twisting knobs on the console. A wheezing, rasping noise filled the air. The room began to shake.

Hermione snapped shut the phone.

"Who did you call?" Harry asked.

Hermione smiled. "He goes by many names. Some call him the Man Who Makes People Better. Some know him as the Last Child of Gallifrey." A wheezing, rasping noise filled the air, growing louder and louder. "Some call him the Oncoming Storm." The noise stopped, and on the hill stood a rather odd-looking blue box. "And some-" A man stepped out. "-call him the Doctor."

**At last! Chapter 3 is complete. The Oncoming Storm has arrived. What he say to our heroes? Will he join them in their quest to save time? How did he meet Hermione? Not to worry. Chapter 4 is under development and will be posted as soon as I've ironed out all the wrinkles. Thanks for reading!**


	4. How the Wizard Met The Time Lord

"Get down!"

Faster than the blink of an eye, Harry and Ron whipped out their wands and aimed them at the mystery man. "Don't move, Death Eater!" Harry shouted, his voice trembling with fury.

The man appeared not to notice him. "Hermione Granger!" he cried happily.

Hermione ran over to him and gave him a great big hug, her face shining with joy. "Doctor! It's been too long!"

The two embraced for a moment, and then broke apart. Hermione turned to Harry and Ron. "This is Harry Potter and Ron Weasley."

Harry and Ron still had not lowered their wands. Hermione brushed them aside, eager for them to get acquainted with the stranger.

"Ooh, where are my manners?" the man asked of himself. He reached into his pocket an fished out what appeared to be a piece of folded leather with some paper on the inside. "I think you'll find everything's in order." He said, holding up the paper.

Harry squinted at it. "There's no way you're the king of Belgium."

Hermione laughed. "Oh, put that little party trick away and introduce yourself already!"

The man held out his hand, smiling sincerely. "Pleasure to meet you. I'm the Doctor. Hermione's told me so much about you both." Harry shook his hand warily. Ron followed suit, suspiciously glaring at the Doctor.

"Well, what are we all standing around for? Come in! Come in!" the Doctor implored. He turned and walked into the blue box he had arrived in. Hermione followed him, still delighted. Harry walked after her.

The inside of the box was huge. Coral grew out of the walls, ceiling, and floor, twisting all around. A control panel rested in the middle of the room, contained all sorts of strange knobs and levers. Harry glanced around carefully, wondering what sort of man this device belonged to.

The Doctor led them down a hallway to a sort of lounge area, where he sat them down and proceeded to serve them all a strange sort of fizzy drink and a bowl of Jelly Babies. Harry and Ron sat uncomfortably, still not knowing what to make of the stranger and sipping uneasily at their drinks.

Meanwhile, Hermione and the Doctor were laughing like old friends, chatting about old times and sharing inside jokes.

"I haven't tasted Silurian ale since that adventure with the Sontarans and the banana smoothies!" Hermione exclaimed delightedly. She toasted the Doctor, complimenting him on his fine taste in drinks. The Doctor, in turn, politely inquired of her doings since he last saw her. After giving him a brief summary of recent events, Hermione became serious. She told him of the events she had just learned of, leading up to the reason she called him.

The Doctor listened intently, growing worried. He thought about her words. "I don't like this. I should have noticed something like this the second I arrived in this century."

"Shall we go check it out then?"

"Always," the Doctor said, smiling.

He strode quickly out the door. "Hope you don't have anything important to do, because this little trip might take awhile."

"Awhile?" Ron protested. "Where are we going?"

"Why, into the Time Vortex, of course!" the Doctor replied, not bothering to look back as he walked briskly down the hall toward the console room."

"Wait, what?" Ron practically shouted. "You're taking us someplace?"

"Yes, to save the world! Isn't that what you Aurors do?"

"Well, I suppose, but we don't even know who you are."

The Doctor stopped abruptly and turned to face Ron. "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 905 years old and I'm going to save all 6 billion people on the planet Earth."

Ron said nothing.

"Have you got a problem with that?"

Ron shook his head.

"Good."

The Doctor pounced on the console as soon as he reached it. "Come on, Hermione! Just like old times!"

Hermione happily took her place opposite the Doctor on the console. "Let's do something impossible today!"

"Let's investigate a wibbly in time!" the Doctor responded, laughing. This was evidently some sort of inside joke.

"Allons-y!" they both shouted together. The Doctor pulled a lever.

The room started shaking violently. Harry steadied himself against a piece of coral as the same rasping, wheezing sound they had heard before emanated from the console.

"Now then," the Doctor said after a moment of this. "Let's see what we can find." He bent over a screen on the console, pressing buttons and twisting knobs. "Haven't used this is awhile," he remarked.

"Still flying blind?" Hermione asked.

"You know it," the Doctor replied, smiling fondly again. "Only way to time travel."

Harry peered over the Doctor's shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Scanning for time anomalies," the Doctor said distractedly. "The TARDIS is a time machine, so this equipment is for investigating stuff like this."

"TARDIS?"

"T-A-R-D-I-S. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space." The Doctor frowned at the screen. "Now that's funny."

"Something impossible, Doctor?"

"I'll say. I'm detecting a time lock, but it's not originating from anywhere a time lock should be." He waved Hermione over to the screen.

"Hogwarts?"

"Looks dangerous, improbable, and shouldn't be messed with." The Doctor looked up and grinned. "Let's go poke it with a stick."

The room shook and wheezed once more. The Doctor and Hermione dashed around the console, pulling and twisting things. Harry held onto the coral again, trying to make sense of it all. Ron, on the other hand, was turning a sickly shade of green and looked as though he had just eaten something unpleasant.

"The time lock is too strong for the TARDIS to break through into the normal flow of time!" The Doctor shouted. "I think I can get us into the correct coordinates but we won't be able to interact with anything."

Harry looked confused. "It'll be sort of like looking into a piece of amber," the Doctor explained as he paused for breath for a moment. "A moment in time, perfectly preserved for all eternity. You can see it, you can touch it, but you can't change it. The time lock prevents the TARDIS from bringing us into a state where time passes normally, but I think this will do." A sudden thud resounded throughout the TARDIS. "We've arrived!" the Doctor called. He and Hermione dashed to the door of the TARDIS, flinging it open wide and stepping out, Harry and Ron on their heels.

Harry wasn't prepared for what he saw. Before him lay the last duel he had had with Voldemort.

The scene was spine-chilling. Exactly as before, Harry and Voldemort were locked in a deadly confrontation. In fact, it was (as Harry noticed) the exact instant that Voldemort had died.

Harry stepped out into the middle of the silent chaos. Slowly walking to the center of the chamber, he saw himself. The past Harry Potter was casting a Disarming Charm, his face locked into the battle, taking no notice of his future self. Harry waved his hand in front of his own eyes.

Nothing.

He touched his shoulder.

_Ting!_

A strange distortion rippled from the spot where his past and present selves touched. The ripple moved outwards by about a foot, temporarily creating a spot in space where Harry's hand felt numb, and a sticky sort of area where it was difficult to pull his hand out of. Harry wrenched his hand away and took a step back. Despite being in Auror and having seen the many strange things Dark Wizards could do with magic, the entire experience was more than a little unsettling.

"What do you make of it all?" Ron asked, coming up behind him.

Harry glanced around. "I can safely say I didn't expect this when I got out of bed earlier."

"Not just that. What about the Doctor?"

Harry looked over at Hermione and the Doctor. The two were busy examining the scene, working together as if they had done so for years. Then he said, "Something's off about him, and I can't quite place what it is. He strikes me as a man who smiles just a bit too much, someone who's seen something horrible and tries to cover it up by being just a bit too happy. It's too early to say much else, and personally I wouldn't want to spend time around someone as unstable as that. Of course, it doesn't help that he looks like a Death Eater that tried to kill me once, which I'll have to ask about later. But Hermione trusts him, and I trust Hermione. And I suppose, until further notice, that will have to be good enough for us."

The Doctor stood in the middle of the room, staring intently at the surrounding scene. "Spot the difference," he whispered to himself.

"Harry!" he called, running over to Harry. "Something's off about this entire place. I don't know what it is, but you don't produce this kind of time lock for the heck of it. The only reason someone would want to do this is if they changed something that they don't want changed back. I need you to look at this scene and tell me what about it has changed."

At a nod from Hermione, Harry reluctantly began pacing the room. A feeling of unreality hung in the air as he examined every detail of the silent world. Everything was the same, the people, the battle, the spells colliding in midair. Finding no difference, Harry began to wonder if the Doctor was just pulling his leg. Then something caught his eye.

A man was standing in a far corner. He was a rather tallish man, but beyond that there was nothing very remarkable about him. His blond hair seemed somehow familiar to Harry, but he did not dwell on it. Instead, his attention was drawn to the fact that the man was holding out his wand and appeared to be in the middle of concentrating intently while chanting some sort of spell.

"Doctor!" The Time Lord sprinted over. "What do you make of this?"

The Doctor studied the man. "I don't like the looks of him. Looks a bit too distracted, wouldn't you say? But what's that on his arm?"

The Doctor kneeled down and examined a part of the man's arm half-covered by his sleeve. "That's an interesting tattoo."

Ron peered at it, eyes widening: "That's not just a tattoo. That's the Dark Mark!"

Harry stood abruptly and grabbed the handle of his wand. "Over here!" Hermione called. On the opposite side of the chamber, standing behind some debris was another man also bearing the Dark Mark, apparently deep in concentration.

Carefully, the four searched the entire chamber, eventually finding ten such people hidden in inconspicuous places. All were deep in concentration. "The question is," Hermione thought out loud, "what are they concentrating on?"

Ron, at the same time, was busy inspecting Voldemort at the moment of his death. Bright green energy from the Elder Wand engulfed his hand, but as Ron looked closer, he began to notice something very odd.

"Look at this," he pointed out to the others. "The Elder Wand is releasing a Killing Curse on him, but, (here he pointed to Voldemort's hand) the energy is curving away from it!"

"It could just be what it looks like at this frozen moment of time," Harry suggested.

"No," Hermione interjected. "That's not how this curse behaves. It doesn't shy away from a target. Something is blocking it!"

The Doctor pulled something metal out of his pocket. Pressing a button that made the end light up and make a strange noise, he proceeded to slowly wave the metal thing at Voldemort, apparently scanning him. "I'm detecting heavy amounts of chemical tranquilizer in his blood. A dosage of this level would render him unconscious for hours!" He stood up. "It's brilliant really. Wizards wouldn't think to look for something as simple as a non-magical chemical in his system, and that's IF anyone would even bother to make sure he's really dead.

"So if the Curse is blocked, and at the same time someone put him to sleep, than that means he never really died?" Ron exclaimed.

Hermione looked grim. "I don't know how that's possible. We saw him buried. And no one could have gotten to his body after that. Still…" She seemed to be weighing something. "We need to talk to someone. We need Professor McGonagall."

Ron looked confused. "Aren't we a little… past that point?"

"She's never steered us wrong before, and she's had experience in this area. If anyone can give us advice, she can." Ron opened his mouth to object, but said nothing.

Back in the TARDIS, Hermione and the Doctor rushed around the console, pulling and pressing things. Ron grabbed the seat he was sitting in as the room shook violently. The TARDIS landed with a dull boom.

Going to the door, Harry grinned widely. "Good old Hogwarts. It's great to be back." He flung open the doors. His wand dropped from his quaking hand as he stared out in horror.

The world was ablaze. Hogwarts lay in ruins, bits of stone and metal lay strew about, twisted and burnt. Pillars of fire burned into the night sky. Bodies littered the ground. The blackened earth smelled of sulfur, and white ash fell like snow upon the silent scene. Twisted limbs lay in the dirt. Glass crunched underfoot. Only a few walls were left standing of the once magnificent castle. Above, in the black sky, hung the Dark Mark.

The heat stung Harry's face, and he tried to speak, but no words would come.

Silence descended on the world.

A strange noise emanated for some of the rubble. It sounded as though someone was coughing up blood. Following the sound, Harry walked through the field of debris, until he found a limp figure pinned under a large slab of stone.

"Professor!"

The group rushed forward. Hermione pulled out her wand and made a flicking motion with her wrist. The stone slab rose up and floated a short distance away.  
Professor McGonagall was badly burned. Her face, once so stern yet kind, was not a mottled mess of scab and burnt flesh. Her arm appeared to be broken, and deep gashes covered much of her body. She was breathing rapidly, and each breath she drew seemed to cause her more pain than the last.

"Harry…" she said faintly, cracking open her burnt eyelids.

"No, Professor, don't talk," Harry whispered. He turned to his friends. "Get her some medicine, now!"

"I have some in the TARDIS." The Doctor turned and sprinted away towards the blue box. Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out her bigger-on-the-inside bag, rooting around furiously for something inside.

"Professor, what _happened_?" Ron asked quietly, kneeling down and cradling her head. This seemed to alleviate some of the pain.

"There-" here she turned abruptly, coughing out more blood and what appeared to be several teeth. "There were only five of them. They… they Apparated into the main hall…" her voice faltered. "They struck down the teachers and announced that anyone who was Pureblood could join them. Some agreed, but many resisted. So (more coughing, more blood) they attacked. They wielded spells unlike anything ever seen in Hogwarts. Killing Curses could not touch them. With their fury they tore the castle apart…"

With a scorched hand, she grabbed Harry's arm. "They have come back! You must stop them now, for if they could not bring the world to its knees before, they can do so now. Go, Harry. Save the world…"

And with this final charge, Professor Minerva McGonagall drew her last breath, and passed away.

Harry said nothing. Reaching forward, he shut his friend's eyes as a single tear slid down his cheek. Ron gently laid her down.

The Doctor came sprinting back, carrying a backpack full of medical supplies. "You're too late," Harry told him coldly, his voice trembling in grief and fury. A pained look shot across the Doctor's face, but he said nothing.

Hermione stopped searching her bag. "If she survived this long, there may be others still alive. We need to look for more survivors."

Tears streaming down his face, Harry nodded silently. Perhaps a little too quickly, he stood up and hurried away, struggling to keep his composure.

The debris field that had once been Hogwarts seemed to stretch for miles in every direction. Pulling himself together, Harry forced himself to walk through the ruins, searching for survivors.

The Great Hall (or what was left of it) had been trashed. Several of the walls had been knocked down, and the magical ceiling, which used to display the sky outside, was flickering badly like a broken neon sign. All the tables were smashed and overturned. Candles rolled under Harry's feet. On the floor, the words "Aaron was here!" were scorched mockingly. Bodies of students and alike were strewn across the floor, and gallons of dried blood painted the walls.

Choking back his bile, Harry checked every corpse and under every piece of rubble. Then he moved on to Gryffindor tower.

The minutes stretched into hours. The world to be holding its breath as Harry carefully explored the castle. Gryffindor Tower, once so magnificent in its rise into the sky, now trembled as a passing wind swept through the holes punched in its blackened walls, and crumbling stone littered the floor. There were few bodies, but Harry didn't remain for long, as he felt the tower would crumble out from under his feet if he stayed. Through a hole in the tower wall, Harry could see the Quidditch field, which looked surprisingly untouched. The portrait of the Fat Lady looked as though it had been melted, and pieces of armor from the Hogwarts Knights rattled as Harry accidentally kicked one that he didn't see.

The house-elf kitchens were trashed and looted, with many house-elves lying dead. The Chamber of Secrets (which Harry found himself exploring out of curiosity in spite of the overwhelming tragedy that lay before him) had been torn up by magic (and apparently whatever had been left of the Basilisk had been taken). Likewise, it appeared that the library had had all of its books stolen. Through the grief that was welling up inside him, Harry thought to himself how distraught Hermione would be when she found out. The thought amused him slightly, and gave him the strength to continue.

Eventually, Harry found himself wandering up the long steps to the Headmaster's office. The entrance had been forced open by magic, and Harry stepped through cautiously, wand at the ready. Inside, he found that the office resembled the rest of the school, in that it had been trashed, burned, and anything remotely useful had been taken.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Potter," a dry, nasal voice said. Harry whipped around, wand in hand, looking for the speaker.

"I'm over here," the voice continued. It seemed to be coming from the far corner. Carefully, Harry crept over the corner. Looking behind a fallen piece of furniture, Harry found, to his great surprise, Serverus Snape.

It wasn't actually Snape, but rather Snape's portrait that Harry had ensured hung in the Headmaster's office. As much as Harry had loathed Snape in previous years, he had grown to respect his former teacher, and now, in spite of all that was going on, was glad to see him.

Quickly, Harry cleared away the ruuble with his wand and picked up Snape's frame. "Thank you. It was getting a bit stuffy behind that cabinet," Snape says, looking at Harry with that same expression of distaste he had always used before. However, Harry merely smiled, grateful to see a familiar face.

"Professor, what happened here?"

Snape looked down his nose at Harry. "Exactly what it looks like, you nearsighted fool." (Harry felt his heart glow warmly at the insult) "A team of Death Eaters broke into Hogwarts and attacked without mercy."

"Yes, Professor McGonagall said they Apparated in. But how is that possible? Could one of the teachers have lowered the Anti-Apparition spells?"

For a moment, Snape looked off into the distance like he was considering it. Then he quickly turned his eyes back to Harry. "I see your rather low opinion of the good people at Hogwarts hasn't left you."

Harry dismissed the comment. Switching tack, he glanced around the office. "None of the other portraits survived. How did you avoid being…" He trailed off suggestively.

"If you must know, I fell behind the cabinet when an explosion shook the office. It was quite dusty back there."

Harry bit back a smile. Deciding that more questions could wait for later, he said, "Come on, Professor. Let's get you someplace safe." Waving his wand, he cast a spell that made Snape's portrait rise a few feet off the ground and hover there. Harry guided the floating portrait out of the door, not daring to look back at the destruction.

Back at the TARDIS, Harry met up with Ron, Hermione, and the Doctor. Ron looked like he was trying to fight back tears, Hermione quietly sobbed as she leaned on the Doctor's shoulder, defeated. The Doctor put his arm around her, staring at the destruction as he tried to comprehend who could have done such a thing.  
Harry held up Snape's portrait. "Look who I found."

This seemed to lift his friends' spirits a little. Hermione stood up, and Ron looked grateful for something to distract himself with.  
Snape looked at them all with disapproval. "Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley. Even after all these years, you two are still around when Mr. Potter gets himself into trouble."

Then Snape turned to the Doctor. "And just who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said. Grieving as he was, he did his best to put on a polite face.

"Just what we need," Snape muttered. "A Muggle nutter that sews people's skin shut with thread."

Hermione stepped forward. "Professor-"

Snape cut her off. "Instead of interrogating me, Miss Granger, shouldn't you be looking for people to help? I thought I heard Professor McGonagall say something about your giant-friend who likes dragons."

Everyone froze.

"Hagrid!"

Harry practically shouted, dropping Snape. Sprinting away, he ran through the ruins of Hogwarts castle, mentally kicking himself over and over for forgetting about Hagrid. The castle flew by him as he run as fast as he could. At last, after several minutes of running, he came to the other side of Hogwarts, and his knees practically gave out from under him, for nothing had prepared him for this.

Before him lay a vast field of crosses.

A mass crucifixion.

Countless bodies hung on the crosses, blood still oozing from their wounds. They were teachers and students alike. Whipped, beaten, and nailed to these pieces of wood, these bodies hung low in utter defeat. Across their chests were written words, carved into their flesh by a rusted, barbed blade. Some bore the word "MUDBLOOD." Other's bore "HALF-BLOOD." And finally, some bodies had the word "TRAITOR" carved into them. Harry sank to his knees. Tears splashed into the dirt below him, mixing with the salt and ash.

How long he remained there, he did not know. Lost in defeat, he returned to reality only when he felt a hand on his shoulder. The Doctor had come up behind him, and was offering to help him up.

"This is what I fight to stop," the Doctor said quietly. "I've seen this many times before, and I will see it many times more. But I save as many as I can, because there is no one else who will."

Gathering himself, Harry took the Doctor's hand and stood up. He looked at the ground as he walked through the field, feeling sick. The Doctor walked silently beside him.

A wet gasp resounded through the field. Looking up, Harry followed the sound to a cross that bore a body with the word "MUDBLOOD" on the chest. The jaw had been torn off, and various pieces of the skin looked like they had been peeled away by some unknown instrument of torture. Muscles were visible in the places where the skin was gone, and blackened, crusty blood seeped from the wounds. Something had torn into the abdomen, and many of the organs hung down loosely out of the hole. It appeared that the cross had been coated by some kind of strange tar-like substance that slowly burned away at the victim. And yet, in spite of all this, the victim was still alive.

Harry was speechless. He looked into the person's face. The person's one remaining eye stared back at him, wordlessly pleading with him.

"Dennis?" Harry whispered. The person nodded almost imperceptibly, for it was, in fact, Dennis Creevy.

Dennis hadn't been a particular friend of Harry's during his time at Hogwarts. Harry hadn't disliked him, but they had never really become friends. Now, with this mangled wreck of a man hanging before him, Harry found there were no words, no way to express how truly sorry he was.

The eye stared back at him, and Harry found he was forced to turn away under the weight of his gaze.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," the Doctor whispered.

"Is there any way we can heal him?" Ron asked quietly. He and Hermione had walked up behind them.

Hermione shook her head. "These are Death Eater torture spells. No known spell or treatment can alleviate them."

Harry turned back to Dennis. Dennis nodded slightly, as if he knew what Harry was thinking. With a heavy heart, Harry lifted his wand to Dennis' temple and chanted a spell under his breath. There was a small green spark, and then Dennis slumped forward. A final breath escaped his lungs, and he was gone.

Wordlessly, the Doctor reached forward and closed Dennis' one remaining eye. "We should go."

Hagrid's hut was a little more than a smoking crater. Fragments of wood and stone littered the ground. Harry scanned the ground carefully, but could find no sign of Hagrid or Fang, Hagrid's dog.

"Could they have escaped into the Forbidden Forest?" Ron asked, pointing to the dark mass of trees behind the crater.

"I doubt it," Harry said. "Hagrid would never abandon Hogwarts even if it was being torn apart. But," he paused and searched his memory. "I didn't see his body anywhere in Hogwarts either…"

"You don't think…" Ron started, horrified.

"No. These Death Eaters killed anyone who stood in their way. I highly doubt they would have taken prisoners," Hermione said authoritatively.

A thought crossed Harry's mind. "Doctor, why don't we just go back in time and stop all this from happening? We can prevent Hogwarts from being attacked if we go back and wait for the Death Eaters with a full fire team of Aurors!"

"We can't do that," the Doctor said, looking sorry. "Bad things happen when you cross your own time stream."

"But time can be rewritten! We've done it before!"

"Actually, we didn't," Hermione pointed out. "Remember that little adventure with the Time Turner, and how I said the Ministry had had problems with time travel in the past? That was the result of someone crossing their own time stream. The Time Turner I was issued had special spells in place that made the device behave according to the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle.

"The what?"

"It's like this. Simply put, the Principle states that any act a time traveler would take in the past would end up being part of history all along. Or, put another way, the laws of physics would not allow any alteration to past events that would cause inconsistencies. Now, naturally this idea is false, but the Time Turners are specifically built to follow this rule in order to avoid causing trouble by altering the past. It's why we could never use the Time Turner to prevent anyone's deaths. So by extension, we never 'undid' anything by venturing backwards and freeing Sirius."

"It is possible to alter the past," the Doctor jumped in. "But doing it these days is rather messy. You see, people assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, when actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more a like a big ball of wibbley wobbly, timey wimey… stuff. Time has all sorts of quirks and wrinkles and sticky parts that make it hard to handle, even for a Time Lord. Sometimes rules that usually apply can be negated under certain conditions." He paused. "But not something like this, I'm afraid. This is too massive and too important to undo, unless you want to end up causing a massive paradox that vaporizes 3/5 of the planet."

Harry was silent. "But you're a Time Lord! You must know of some way to avert this!"

The Doctor looked at him gravely. "I can't. Once, long ago, the Time Lords could have helped us. With the right persuasion, I could have gotten help. But the Time Lords are gone, never to return. And I have neither the skill nor the means to undo this."

Harry said nothing.

"Harry, look at me," the Doctor put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "I swear I will find whoever did this. And I will make them answer for their crimes."


End file.
